THE  STEINWAY 
COLLECTION 


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This  is  the  last  published  work  of 
yames  Huneker 

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Presented  by  STEINWAY  &  SONS  to 


 (H 


a 


STEINWAY  COLLECTION 
of  PAINTINGS  by 
AMERICAN  ARTISTS 

rOQErHETi^  WITH 

PROSE  PORTRAITS 

of  the  QTifAT  COMPOSETiS  by 
JAMES  HUNEKER 


T*u b it s hed  by 
STEI  N  WAY  ^  SONS 


5^ 


W 


COPYRIGHT,    I  919 
BY 

THE  STEINWAY  COMPANY 


R^E  £       D  E 


PRELUDE  that  praises  pi Siures  should  be  expressed 
in  terms  of  tone;  but  as  the  present  colleSiion  is  a  pcean 
^Mi^  honor  of  great  composers  and  their  music,  other  than 
sober prose^pould be  inutile.  Itlppasan  admirable  idea  of 
w  Steinway  &f  Sons  to  enlist  the  sympathetic  co-operation 
of  certain  <^merican  artists  in  the  creation  oj  pi  Siures 
that  '\vould  evoke  musical  l^isions;  for  music  is  visionary,  notwithstanding 
its  primal  appeal  to  the  ear.  W alter  T^aterlpoas  perfeSily  justified  when  he  de- 
scribed music  as  an  art  to  Ipphich  the  other  arts  aspire,  ^^^^(eyertheless,  to  invest 
tonal  arabesques^ith  form  and  color  has  always  proved  a  hazardous  experi- 
ment, because  it  presupposes  a  knowledge  of  the  theme  on  the  part  of  the  spec- 
tator, and  a felicitous  interpretation  on  the  part  of  the  artist.  Yet  an  experi- 
ment worthy  of  trial;  above  all,  an  interesting  one.  It  livas  Fran^jQis^  who 
declared  that  his  ambition  Ippas  to  play  in  the  Salon  Qarre  of  the  J^uvre, 
that  treasure  gallery,^  here  to  the  challenging  glances  ofT>a  %Jinci,  (jior- 
gione,  '^^^embrandt,  Titian,  T^aolo  ^Veronese,  ^I{afhael  and  other  miraculous 
creations,  he  '\vould  discourse  his  own  magical  music.  IV z  have  no  -Qis;^  now 
to  play  his  homage  to  the  Steinway  piBures,  but  if  he  Ippere  to  revisit  these 
glimpses  of  the  moon,  he  l^ould find  himself  at  ease  in  this  assemblage.  How 
he  Ippould  reveal  the  colossal  music-dramas  of  agner,  the  symphonic  scenes 
of  'Beethoven,  the  tender  and  poetic  songs  of  Schubert,  Qonjure  up  the  thrill 
he  '^^ou Id  arouse  by  his  dramatic  performance  of  the  £rl-king.  ^^^binstein^ 
cJ)(Cendelssohn,  and  the  thrice-subtle  Qhopin  he  ^ould  interpret;  stately 
Handel  and  romantic  <t^cT)owell;  '^erlio^and  <ty)(£o^rt,  storm-cloud  and 
sunshine,  he  Ippould  ma/^e  live  again,  andUerdi,  too,  master  of  operatic  cli- 
maxes. That  no  one  ever  played  J^s^  like  4^s^  is  musical  history.  W z  long 
to  put  backet  he  hands  of  the  clock^of  Time. 


'^ut  let  us  not  tarry  too  long  in  this  region  of  pleasing  surmise.  ThepiSlures 
herein  must  play  themselves  in  the  imagination  of  the  onlooker.  They  are 
largely  illustrational  as  befits  their  subjeSis.  ^h(ormal  canons  of  art  that  pro- 
scribe the  mingling  of two  dissimilar  arts  should  be forgotten  and  the  mi?id  left 
unhampered  to  enjoy  the  fantasy  of  the  conception.  one  but  a  poet  could 
dare  bend  the  bow  of  such  a  Ulysses  as  ^erlio^  Or  the  overarching  utterances 
of^eethoven^  can  they  be  even  hinted atf  <^ll styles  may  be  noted,no painter 
was  asked  to  conform  to  any  set  scheme.  Homely  pathos^  tragic  abandon^  na- 
ture in  her  sweetest  zApril  garb,  the  roar  of  the  Erl-kjng  s  icy  blast,  the  sheer 
gossamer  loveliness  of  the  <:JJ)(Cidsummer  Night' s  'Dream,  the  fierce  onset  of 
battling  Indians,  Handel  and  his  flowing  Fire  Fugue,  the  death  of  cJhCo^rt, 
the  fevered  vision  of  Qhopi?i,  '^B^b  in  stein  and  his  royal  auditors,  J^st^  and 
W agner,  and  again  J^s^^,  the  aged  magician  weaving  his  spells  in  the  lone- 
liness of  his  latter  years,  Uerdi  and  his  tropical  music — here  are  composers 
from  many  lands,  who  have  held  the  Ipporld  in  thrall  for  a  century  and 
more.  need  to  emphasise  their  eminence.  <L^usic  lovers  in  <iylmerica  will 
welcome  the  evocations  of  these  musicians  set  forth  by  the  brush  of  native 
painters  and  illustrators  of  renown. '^j^nd  Steinway  ^  Sons  are  quite  quali- 
fied in  presenting  these  piFiures.<tAre  they  not  artists  themselves  in  the  produc- 
tion of  an  instrument  that  rivals  in  tonal  charm  an  exquisite  Stradivarius! 


EORGE  SAND,  the  novelist,  played  the  role  of 
maternal  secretary  to  the  Polish  composer,  Frede- 
ric Frangois  Chopin.  She  it  was,  even  before  Liszt, 
who  interpreted  his  personality  and  music  in  her 
supple  prose.  The  history  of  her  life  tells  us  of  her 
sojourn  on  the  Isle  of  Majorca  with  the  sick,  ner- 
vous composer.  It  was  at  the  deserted  monastery 
of  Valdemosa,  which  for  him  was  full  of  terrors  and  phantoms,  but 
only  interesting  to  her  more  robust  imagination.  Often  on  returning 
from  her  nocturnal  rambles  with  her  children  she  would  find  him  at 
the  keyboard,  pale,  his  eyes  haggard,  hair  on  end,  unable  to  recognize 
them  at  once;  and  then,  after  an  attempted  smile,  he  would  play 
sublime  things,  terrible,  heart-rending  ideas  that  had  obsessed  him  in 
his  hours  of  sadness  and  solitude.  Some  are  the  visions  of  deceased 
monks  and  the  sounds  of  funeral  chants,  which  beset  his  fancy;  others 
are  sweet  and  melancholy — they  came  to  him  in  the  hours  of  sunshine 
and  health,  with  the  noise  of  the  children's  laughter  under  the  window, 
the  distant  sound  of  guitars,  the  warbling  of  the  birds  among  the  humid 
foliage,  and  the  sight  of  the  pale,  little  roses  on  the  snow.  Others,  again, 
are  of  a  mournful  character,  and,  while  charming  the  ear,  lacerate 
the  heart.  Thus  George  Sand,  concerning  those  compositions  modestly 
entitled  by  the  composer, 'Pre/Wgi".  Of  them  Robert  Schumann  wrote: 
"  I  must  signalize  them  as  most  remarkable.  I  will  confess  I  expected 
something  quite  different,  carried  out  in  the  grand  style  of  his  studies. 
It  is  almost  the  contrary  here;  these  are  sketches,  the  beginnings  of 
studies,  on,  if  you  will,  ruins,  the  feathers  of  eagles,  all  strangely  inter- 
mingled. But  in  every  piece  we  find  in  his  own  hand,  *  Frederic 
Chopin  wrote  it.'" 

The  T^reludes  were  published  in  1839,  the  same  year  of  the  trip 
to  the  Balearic  Island;  nevertheless,  there  is  internal  evidence  to  prove 


that  most  of  them  had  been  composed  before.  This  fact  upsets  the 
legend  about  the  music-making  at  Valdemosa.  George  Sand  relates 
that  once,  with  her  son  Maurice,  she  had  gone  to  Palma,  where  she 
was  overtaken  by  a  storm.  Chopin's  anxiety  increased  as  they  failed 
to  return.  Despairingly  he  improvised  the  famous  T^relude  in  D  flat, 
his  face  bathed  in  tears.  After  much  danger  and  delay  the  mother  and 
son  entered  late  at  night  his  monastic  cell.  He  called  out  as  if  startled 
from  the  dream  of  a  somnambulist:  Ah!  I  knew  well  that  you  were 
dead !  "  He  later  told  her  that  he  had  seen,  as  if  in  a  vision,  all  the  hard- 
ships she  had  experienced.  Like  the  young  artist  in  the  Fantastic 
Symphony  of  Berlioz,  Chopin  dreamed  that  he  was  dead.  He  saw  him- 
self drowned  in  a  lake;  heavy,  ice-cold  drops  of  water  fell  at  regular 
intervals  upon  his  breast;  and  when  his  attention  was  called  to  drops 
of  water  that  were  actually  falling  at  regular  intervals  upon  the  roof, 
he  denied  having  heard  them.  He  was  even  vexed  at  what  Madame 
Sand  translated  by  the  vivid  term.  Imitative  Harmony.  He  protested 
against  the  puerilities  of  these  imitations.  His  genius  was  full  of  mys- 
terious harmonies  of  nature,  translated  by  sublime  equivalents  into 
his  musical  thought,  and  not  by  a  servile  repetition  of  external  sounds. 
His  Prelude  was  indeed  full  of  the  raindrops  which  resounded  on  the 
sonorous  tiles  of  the  monastery,  but  they  were  transformed  in  his  im- 
agination and  his  music  into  tears  falling  on  his  heart. 

There  is  no  denying  the  persuasive  rhetoric  of  Madame  George, 
but  is  the  T)  Jiat  Prelude  the  T^indrop  T*re/ude  f  Rather  is  it  not 
the  sixth  Prelude  in  S  minor  f  The  favorite  one  in  T)  flat  has  always 
seemed  to  be  the  one  of  which  Sand  wrote :  "  Dead  monks  who  rise  and 
pass  before  the  hearer,  in  solemn  and  gloomy  pomp;"  while  the  'F^re- 
lude  in  S  minor,  though  a  mere  sketch  in  comparison  of  the  idea  elab- 
orated in  the  flfteent.h  l^relude  above  mentioned,  is  the  foundation  of 
the  picture  in  which  the  drops  of  rain  fall  at  regular  intervals;  the 
echo  principle.  A  continual  patter  which  reduces  the  mind  to  a  state 
of  sadness;  a  melody  full  of  tears  is  heard  through  the  rush  of  rain, 
adds  a  sentimental  commentator.  The  artist  has  seized  upon  the  most 
vivid  moment  of  the  story,  the  unexpected  entrance  of  Madame  Sand 
and  her  children,  as  Chopin  stands  in  anguish  rooted  before  his  piano. 


Copjright ^  igiS 


WA  g        R  ^  £  I  s  Z."^ 


k^y^^-A^^  FT  1U A R  is  a  little  city  rich  in  artistic  memories. 

Here  Goethe  and  Schiller,  with  a  galaxy  of  poets, 
ft^  philosophers,  musicians,  once  held  sway.  Later, 
this  tiny  Athens  on  the  Ilm,  as  it  has  been  called, 
WJMm  ^g^i^  became  an  artistic  center.  Music  was  en- 
throned.  Franz  Liszt,  a  magnetic  focus,  drew  to 
S  him  pianists,  violinists,  composers,  conductors;  in- 
deed, modern  music,  incarnated  in  Wagner,  Berlioz  and  Liszt,  was 
given  its  primal  impulse  by  the  extraordinary  Hungarian  virtuoso, 
innovator — he  is  the  father  of  the  Symphonic  Poem — and  charming 
man  of  the  world.  His  efforts  in  behalf  of  the  young  struggling  Dresden 
conductor,  Richard  Wagner,  are  a  testimony  to  his  unselfishness  and 
devotion  to  lofty  ideals.  The  friendship  that  was  cemented  by  Liszt's 
aid  to  the  political  exile  and  revolutionist,  Wagner,  lasted  their  lives 
long.  And  if  Wagner  proved  ungrateful  it  must  be  set  down  to  tem- 
peramental defects,  to  the  bitter  disappointments  and  reverses,  fol- 
lowed by  a  turn  of  fortunes,  startling  enough  to  upset  the  moral  equi- 
librium of  a  less  impressionable  man  than  the  great  composer.  But 
Liszt  was  as  true  as  the  needle  to  the  compass.  In  Paris  the  encounter 
of  the  men  had  been  casual.  Liszt's  brilliant  career  was  then  at  its 
apogee.  Wagner,  unknown,  making  a  bare  living  by  arranging  medi- 
ocre operatic  tunes  for  the  cornet,  and  writing  letters  to  a  journal  in 
Germany,  rather  resented  the  superior  position  of  Liszt.  Perhaps  he 
was  envious.  No  matter,  Liszt  did  nothing  that  could  be  construed  as 
patronizing  the  other.  When  he  heard  Wagner's  first  "suc- 

cessful "  work,  he  became  an  ardent  Wagnerite;  Liszt  was,  after  Richard 
himself,  the  original  Wagnerian.  He  did  more,  he  produced  T'ann- 
hduser  at  the  Weimar  Opera  House,  and  then  the  irritable  composer 
fully  realized  that  he  had  won  a  friend. 

More  followed,  Wagner  became  involved  in  the  Dresden  up- 


rising  of  1849  wanted  by  the  police."  He,  the  conductor  of 

the  Royal  Opera  House,  had  become  a  "traitor."  In  reality,  his  part 
in  the  affair  was  not  significant,  being  more  a  gesture  of  revolt  than 
of  actual  deeds.  He  rang  the  bells  in  a  church  as  a  signal  for  the  insur- 
rection, and,  so  it  is  said,  bravely  crossed  the  firing  line  to  get  a  water- 
ice.  The  sybarite  and  socialist  in  the  make-up  of  this  strange  character 
were  equally  balanced.  Disguised  as  a  coachman,  Wagner  hurriedly 
left  Dresden  and  went  to  Weimar,  where,  temporarily  at  least,  he  was 
sure  of  a  refuge  and  ahearty  welcome.  Liszt  did  not  fail  him,  and  openly 
expressed  his  delight.  But  the  exile's  stay  was  brief;  he  traveled  under 
an  assumed  name  and  vv^ith  the  passport  of  another.  Soon  he  was 
smuggled  across  Zurich,  then  proceeded  to  Paris.  However, he  did  not 
leave  Weimar  before  he  recognized  the  offices,  artistic  and  pecuniary, 
of  the  large-souled  Liszt.  He  heard  from  those  marvelous  singing 
fingers  music  the  living  sounds  of  which  were  novel  to  him.  The 
painter  shows  us  the  weary,  almost  broken-hearted,  composer  touched 
to  the  very  core  by  Liszt's  interpretations.  And  with  an  artistic  license 
he  has  made  the  pianist  the  younger  of  the  two.  No  wonder  Wagner 
later  wrote  that  as  his  eye  fell  on  the  score  of  J^hengrin  "a  pitiful 
feeling  overcame  me  that  these  tones  would  never  resound  from  the 
deathly-pale  paper;  two  words  I  wrote  to  Liszt."  And  the  answer 
swiftly  came.  J^hengrin  was  already  in  rehearsal,  and  August  20,  1850, 
witnessed  its  premiere.  Franz  Liszt  had  again  demonstrated  his  noble 
love  of  beautiful  art. 


OUBTLESS,  Franz  Liszt,  greatest  of  all  pianists, 
composer  of  startling  originality,  a  pioneer  and 
path-breaker  in  modern  music,  above  all,  Liszt  the 
magnificent  and  big-souled,  had  his  lonesome,  lat- 
ter years,  for  in  all  the  hurly-burly  of  his  life  he  still 
found  time  for  meditation.  He  shared  the  last  two 
decades  of  his  existence  between  Rome,  Budapest 
and  Weimar.  The  little  Thuringian  town  was  his  preferred  resting 
place.  There  he  entertained  both  genius  and  royalty;  there,  with  a 
patience  positively  angelic,  he  listened  to  those  birds  of  passage,  young 
pianoforte  students,  spread  their  wings  before  making  their  initial 
flights  in  the  concert  halls  of  the  world.  Much  talent  passed  through 
his  hands,  much  that  was  mediocre  must  have  been  a  thorn  in  the  side 
of  this  almost  saintly  artist,  who  practiced  what  he  preached— that  out 
of  the  hundred  if  ninety  and  nine  proved  failures,  one  grain  of  wheat 
was  worth  winnowing  from  the  chafF.  And  such  was  his  luck  that  in  the 
vast  and  varied  list  of  his  pupils  there  occur  such  names,  glorious  in 
the  annals  of  pianism,  as  Tausig,  Von  Biilow,  Rubinstein — Anton 
certainly  profited  by  his  soj  ourns  atWeimar— JosefFy,  Pachmann,  Rosen- 
thal, Friedheim,  Reisenauer,  D' Albert,  Sgambati,  Sofia  Menter — and 
how  many  others,  composers  as  well  as  conductors?  In  Weimar  Liszt 
walked  and  talked,  smoked  strong  cigars,  played,  prayed  —  he  never 
missed  daily  mass — and  composed.  After  rambling  over  Weimar  and 
burrowing  in  the  Liszt  museum  one  feels  tempted  to  call  Liszt  the  hap- 
piest of  composers.  A  career  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  music,  a 
victorious  general  at  the  front  of  his  army  of  ivory  keys,  a  lodestone  for 
men  and  women,  a  poet,  diplomatist,  ecclesiastic  with  the  sunny  nature 
of  a  child,  loved  by  all  who  met  him,  and  himself  envious  of  no  one — 
surely  the  fates  forgot  to  spin  their  evil  threads  at  the  cradle  of  Liszt. 
Nevertheless,  he  was  not  a  happy  man.  He  had  his  temperamental 


daemon;  he  was  the  victim  of  the  blackest  ingratitude,  and  from 
quarters  least  expected,  from  those  he  had  most  helped.  Worst  of  all, 
he  was  not  recognized  during  his  life-time  except  by  the  "happy  few" 
as  the  remarkable  composer  that  he  was;  and  even  after  his  death 
recognition  grudgingly  came.  Today  he  has  fallen  into  his  natural 
historical  perspective,  though  outshone  by  Richard  Wagner,  who  was 
in  his  debt  for  musical  ideas  as  well  as  material  assistance;  and  in  the 
domain  of  the  Symphonic  Poem,  his  most  significant  contribution  to 
art,  Richard  Strauss  quite  o'er-crows  him.  His  philosophical  resigna- 
tion need  not  blind  us  to  the  hardship  of  his  fate— perhaps  the  fate  of 
many  forerunners  or  transitional  types.  But  Richard  Strauss  plays  on 
the  nerves,  Liszt  touches  our  heart. 

At  the  old  house  standing  in  Weimar  park,  where  Goethe  and- 
Schiller  promenaded,  there  is  a  veritable  museum  of  mementoes.  What 
a  collection  of  musical  manuscripts,  trophies,  jewels,  pictures,  orders 
of  nobility  and  letters!  There  may  be  seen  besides  the  numerous  cases 
containing  gifts  from  all  the  crowned  heads  of  Europe,  the  scores  of 
Liszt's  C/iristuSy  Faust  Symphony,  Orpheus,  Hungaria,  T)eath  T)ance, 
z^lftountain  Symphony,  and  marble  casts  of  Chopin  and  Liszt's  hands. 
Also  Liszt's  favorite  piano,  the  Steinway. 

As  depicted  in  the  present  canvas,  he  dreams  of  his  past  triumphs; 
of  the  three  women  who  filled  his  life — Caroline  St.  Criq,  Countess 
d'Agoult  and  Princess  Wittgenstein;  of  his  trials,  sorrows  and  ultimate 
peace  in  the  arms  of  Mother  Church.  The  latter  years  are  at  hand,  he 
is  on  the  threshold  of  old  age.  The  weary  wonder-worker  has,  like 
Prospero,  laid  down  his  wand;  the  wizard  Merlin  is  in  the  toils  of 
Time.  Ring  down  the  curtain,  the  comedy  is  ended! 


C1>  O  WE  J^L 


DWARD  ALEXANDER  MACDOWELL  was 
not  only  a  noble  character  whose  ideals  were  of  like 
nobility,  but  he  was  a  composer  of  whom  America  is 
proud.  And  naturally  enough.  A  pianist  of  the  first 
rank,  he  composed  music  that  is  romantic,  is  real- 
istic, and  truly  native,  as  may  be  appreciated  in  the 
8f^y)(Cinor  Orchestral  Suite,  called  the  Indian.  Else- 
where I  have  described  him  as  a  belated  romantic;  he  is  only  modern 
in  his  employment  of  technical  devices,  but  the  spirit  of  his  melodies, 
their  sweetness,  grace,  dreaminess,  above  all,  their  cavalier  qualities, 
are  purely  romantic.  He  was  by  blood  and  temperament  northern 
racial,  and  it  is  reflected  in  his  four  piano  sonatas,  the  ^AQrse,  f^/ticy 
Heroic  and  Tragic  sonatas,  his  most  significant  contribution  to  music. 
But  there  was  also  another  MacDowell;  the  poet,  his  soul  overflowing 
with  tenderness  and  caprice,  who  gave  us  the  lyrics  and  the  minor  piano 
pieces.  A  fragrant  fancy  informs  them,  a  poesy  that  is  seldom  encoun- 
tered outside  the  pages  ot  Schumann  or  the  naive  utterances  of  Grieg. 
With  the  latter,  MacDowell  felt  the  cold  northern  night  skies,  punc- 
tured by  few  large  stars;  felt  the  shock  of  warring  hosts  about  the 
misty,  tremendous  ramparts  of  the  Scandinavian  Walhalla.  And,  like 
Schumann,  he  could  fill  a  song  with  the  shy  sweetness  of  a  wild  rose. 
In  his  two  piano  concertos  with  orchestral  accompaniment  we  come 
upon  a  new  man,  the  virtuoso  MacDowell.  Brilliant,  dramatic,  these 
works  stem  from  Franz  Liszt— of  whose  Symphonic  Poems  he  was  an 
admirer,  an  admiration,  be  it  said,  that  was  heartily  returned  by  the 
aged  Merlin  of  Weimar.  And  how  MacDowell  played  the  solo  parts 
of  these  compositions! 

A  larger,  more  powerfully  conceived  canvas  is  his  Indian  Suite 
for  orchestra,  the  subject  of  the  present  picture.  In  the  score  the  themes 
are  of  Indian  origin,  deriving  from  the  ritual  and  songs  of  various  tribes. 


For  example,  he  has  told  us  that  while  the  first  movement,  the  Jl^end^ 
was  suggested  by  the  "Miantowona"  of  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  the 
themes  are  from  an  Iroquois  harvest  song.  The  J^^e  Song  is  from  the 
Iowa  tribe,  with  its  aboriginal  syncopated  rhythm.  In  War  Time,  the 
ensuing  movement,  is  precisely  the  episode  that  intrigued  the  interest 
of  the  present  painter.  Curiously  enough,  its  tune  is  less  in  Indian 
characteristics  than  its  companion,  though  it  is  said  to  have  been  sung 
by  the  Atlantic  Coast  Indians;  they  believed  it  to  be  a  melody  heard 
in  the  heavens  before  the  coming  of  the  white  race.  It  was  thought  to 
be  a  supernatural  warning.  The  war-song  and  a  woman's  dance  of  the 
Iroquois  conclude  this  fascinating,  picturesque  composition.  Mac- 
Dowell  is  the  pioneer  in  modern  music  of  aboriginal  Americans,  the 
Indians. 

The  canvas  of  the  painter  is  semi-fantastic.  A  battle  furiously 
rages,  let  us  imagine,  between  the  Utes  and  Cheyennes.  It  has  lasted 
for  several  days.  The  slaughter  is  dire.  From  the  sky,  so  each  combat- 
ant fondly  believes,  his  war  god  looks  down  with  pagan  impassivity 
upon  the  conflict,  the  ancestor  spirits  of  the  earthly  fighters.  The  fly- 
ing arrows  might  be  the  swirl  of  the  violins,  though  there  is  no  futile 
attempt  at  literal  transcription.  But  the  spectator  with  a  grain  of  im- 
agination is  bound  to  overhear  the  crash  of  drums  and  trumpets,  the 
cries  of  the  warriors,  and  the  weeping  of  the  women  in  the  tepees.  A 
stirring  moment  both  in  the  orchestra  and  within  the  frame  of  the  canvas. 


UDWIG  VAN  BEETHOVEN  was  a  profound 
lover  of  nature  in  all  her  phases.  He  gloried  in 
the  sunshine  and  did  not  fear  the  shade;  once  he 
angrily  refused  an  umbrella,  preferring  to  walk  bare- 
headed in  a  rain  storm.  The  first  man  who  marched 
through  the  London  streets  with  an  open  umbrella 
was  mobbed.  In  Vienna  the  composer  of  the  Heroic 
symphony  was  looked  upon  as  suspiciously  eccentric  for  not  carrying 
one.  Other  days,  other  ways.  He  incurred,  too,  the  disreputable  title 
of  republican  because  in  company  with  Goethe  he  did  not  doff  his 
hat  to  royalty.  At  Baden  when  in  search  of  lodging  he  asked:  "How 
is  this?  Where  are  your  trees?"  "We  have  none."  "Then  the  house 
won't  do  for  me.  I  love  a  tree  more  than  a  man."  He  said  of  himself: 
"No  man  on  earth  loves  the  country  more.  Woods,  trees  and  rocks 
give  the  response  which  man  requires.  Every  tree  seems  to  say:  <  Holy, 
holy.'  Any  one  who  has  an  idea  of  country  life  can  make  for  himself 
the  intentions  of  the  author  without  any  titles."  This  particularly 
applies  to  his  sixth  symphony,  the  l?astoral^  of  which  he  said:  "Not  a 
picture,  but  something  in  which  are  expressed  the  emotions  aroused 
in  men  by  the  pleasures  of  the  country,  or  in  which  some  feelings  of 
country  life  are  set  forth."  It  may  be  remarked  in  passing  that  he  did 
not  disdain  the  imitation  in  tones  of  natural  sounds.  This  same  ^^j- 
toral  Symphony, with  its  serenity,  its  suggestion  of  open  air,  innocent 
merry-making,  the  singing  of  birds,  the  sudden  thunder  and  the  real- 
istic storm,  the  hymn  of  thanksgiving  and  the  joyous  peasants  footing 
a  dance,  is  it  not,  after  all,  a  perfect  specimen  of  programme  music? 

Beethoven  never  missed  his  daily  walk  when  living  in  Vienna. 
His  body-servant,  Michael  Krenn,has  told  us  of  the  last  summer  spent 
by  the  composer  in  his  brother's  house  at  Gneixendorf,  and  quoted  by 
Grove.  He  spent  much  time  in  the  open  air,  from  six  in  the  morning 


till  ten  at  night  roaming  about  the  fields  with  or  without  his  hat,  and 
his  sketch  book  in  hand;  shouting  and  flourishing  his  arms,  completely 
carried  away  by  the  inspiration  of  his  ideas.  One  of  his  favorite  prov- 
erbs was,  "  The  morning  air  has  gold  to  spare."  Certainly  this  Pas- 
toral Symphony  is  pervaded  by  vivifying  ozone.  His  diaries,  says  Grove, 
and  sketch  books  contain  frequent  allusions  to  nature.  In  one  place 
he  mentions  seeing  daybreak  in  the  woods,  through  the  still  undis- 
turbed night  mists.  In  another  we  find  a  fragment  of  a  hymn,  "God 
alone  is  our  Lord,"  sung  to  himself  "  on  the  road  in  the  evening,  up  and 
down  among  the  mountains,"  as  he  felt  the  solemn  and  serene  influ- 
ences of  the  hour.  The  most  beloved  of  all  these  spots,  the  situation  of 
his  favorite  inn, "The  Three  Ravens," is  more  than  once  referred  to  by 
him  as  the  "lovely  divine  Briihl."  Every  summer  he  took  refuge  from 
the  heat  of  Vienna  in  the  wooded  environs  of  Hetzendorf,  Heiligen- 
stadt,  or  Dobling,  or  in  Modling,  or  Baden,  farther  away.  This  particu- 
lar spot  from  which  he  drew  his  inspiration  lor  the  T^astoral  Symphony 
was  the  Wiesenthal  between  Heiligenstadt  and  Grinzing,  to  the  west 
of  Vienna.  "Here,"  he  said,  "I  wrote  the  Scene  by  the  Brook,  and  the 
quails,  nightingales  and  cuckoos  around  about  composed  along  with 


me. 


In  the  picture  we  see  him  bareheaded  at  the  edge  of  a  brook; 
there  is  the  sound  of  running  waters  in  the  Brook  scene  of  this  Sym- 
phony ;  "  the  ^rook,"  he  calls  it.  It  is  a  beautiful  summer  day. 
Nature  wears  her  gayest  garb.  The  tone-poet  drinks  in  the  lovely 
scene.  "The  larger  the  brook,  the  deeper  the  tone,"  he  wrote  in  his 
note  book.  And  he  depicted  this  feeling  in  his  music,  though  he  has 
warned  us  in  this  particular  Symphony  that  it  is  "more  expression  of 
feeling  than  painting."  But  on  Beethoven's  varied  palette  he  mixed 
emotion  with  his  colors,  and  the  world  is  richer  by  a  masterpiece. 
Deep  calling  unto  deep.  Beethoven  and  Nature. 


'B£\L10Z 


Ctf;right,  iqiS 


f^^^^ECTOR  BERLIOZ,  of  the  flaming  locks,  eagle's 
beak,  and  flaming  soul,  thus  wrote  of  himself  and 
fhis  art:  "The  dominant  qualities  of  my  music  are 
^passionate  expression,  inward  ardor,  rhythmical  ani- 
jmation  and  the  unexpedted."  But  he  forgot  to  add, 
)  exaggeration.  He  was  nothing  if  not  melodramatic. 
His  rival,  Richard  Wagner,  came  nearer  the  truth 
when  he  said  of  Berlioz:  "An  immense  inner  wealth,  an  heroically 
vigorous  imagination,  forces  out  as  from  a  crater  a  pool  of  passions; 
what  we  see  are  colossally  formed  smoke  clouds,  parted  only  by  light- 
ning and  streaks  of  fire,  and  modeled  into  fugitive  shapes.  Everything 
is  prodigious,  daring  but  infinitely  painful."  Prodigious  is  the  word 
that  best  expresses  the  genius  of  this  great  Romantic,  a  Victor  Hugo 
of  tone.  His  literary  gifts  were  superior  to  Wagner's,  yet  Wagner  it  is 
who  summed  up  the  French  composer.  His  frescoes  are  orgies.  His 
music  is  like  massive  blocks  of  granite  juxtaposed.  It  never  seems  to 
flow,  but  rests  in  monumental  Egyptian  rigidity.  There  is  powerful 
characterization  in  the  Fantastic  Symphony  and  many  extravagances. 
A  nightmare  set  to  music  within  an  epical  frame.  In  his  K^g  J^ar 
overture,  one  of  his  works  that  best  stands  repetition,  there  are,  as 
Hanslick  puts  it,  the  forced,  the  hollow,  and  even  the  trivial  beside  the 
most  powerful  impulses.  A  passionately  stirred  inner  life  leads  here  to 
violently  moving  exclamations,  but  to  no  connected  life.  You  think 
of  Berlioz  in  terms  of  the  superlative.  He  is  volcanic,  oppressively  agi- 
tating, frightful.  He  worshiped  Shakespeare  and  Byron,  but  not  Bach. 
His  scores  are  strangely  deficient  in  plastic  polyphony.  But  if  he  is 
sensational,  he  is  also  picturesque.  He  conceived  music  pictorially.  He 
was  a  painter,  rather  than  a  composer.  He  was  as  much  obsessed  by 
the  poetic  idea  as  the  melodic.  His  orchestra  is  highly  colored.  He  is 
the  father  of  modern  orchestration. 


His  life  was  a  mad  dream,  full  of  sorrows  and  misunderstandings 
and  poverty.  He  loved  like  a  madman,  cooled  off  hastily.  He  had  the 
temperament  of  the  ever  unsatisfied,  unhappy  artist.  His  Fantastic 
Symphony  yW\t\i  the  sub-title  ^^<i^n  Episode  in  the  Life  of  an  ^rtist^^  (the 
second  part  of  the  Episode  is  "Lelio,  or  the  Return  to  Life"),  is  auto- 
biographical, not  in  the  precise  sense,  but  as  giving  us  a  panoramic 
glimpse  of  his  disquieted  soul.  In  it  he  depid:s  a  young  artist  of  lively 
imagination  who  sees  a  beautiful  woman.  He  loves  her  desperately. 
She  realizes  his  ideal.  He  is  pursued  by  a  fixed  idea  of  her,  a  musical 
motive  that  haunts  all  the  movements  of  the  symphony.  There  are 
dreams  and  passions,  a  ball-room,  a  scene  in  the  fields,  a  storm,  and 
then,  convinced  that  his  love  is  not  returned,  he  poisons  himself  with 
opium.  Follows  a  dream  within  a  dream,  a  nightmare  superimposed 
on  a  drugged  brain.  The  poison  does  not  kill;  it  starts  whirring  within 
the  wretched  chambers  of  his  mind  a  picture,  one  worthy  of  morbid 
Edgar  Poe.  He  has  murdered  the  beloved  one.  He  has  been  tried  and 
condemned.  He  sits  bound  in  a  tumbril  followed  by  an  infuriated  mob, 
the  sky  of  his  fancy  flooded  by  infernal  shapes.  The  wraith  of  the  dear 
dead  woman  faithfully  attends  him  as  the  march  to  the  scaffold  begins. 
The  fixed  idea  sings  in  his  ears.  Bells  toll  funereally.  The  T^ies  Irae  is 
chanted,  his  day  of  wrath  is  at  hand.  Then  the  fall  of  the  axe  on  the 
block,  and  all  is  over,  except  a  last  nightmare;  a  dream  of  the  night 
of  the  Witches  Sabbath,  a  dream  after  death  in  which  his  fixed  idea  is 
burlesqued,  and  ending  with  a  travesty  of  the  hymn.  You  look  for  a 
final  curtain,  it  is  all  so  hideously  dramatic.  To  translate  this  music, 
which  is  itself  a  translation  from  a  picture,  back  to  the  pictorial  plane 
is  well-nigh  impossible.  How  the  artist  has  achieved  his  task  in  evok- 
ing a  most  fantastic  vision  may  be  seen  in  the  present  canvas,  with  its 
mad  riot  and  struggling  shapes.  It  is  the  March  to  the  Scaffold  re- 
orchestrated  in  color. 


^  O  \f 


IKE  all  celebrated  men,  Mozart  had  his  legend.  For 
one  thing,  he  did  not  in  life  resemble  his  portraits. 
Beethoven  is  another  victim  of  the  whim  of  the 
painters,  who  made  of  him  a  mawkish  posing  hero. 
In  reality  he  was  a  peasant  as  to  exterior,  and  his 
rough  manners  did  not  dispel  the  impression;  but 
T^aa^^T^^a  sublime  peasant.  Mozart  must  have  revealed  a 
more  attractive  personality.  Yet  he  was  neither  imposing  nor  hand- 
some. Insignificant  in  figure,  his  mobile  features  atoned  for  his  lack  of 
presence.  Nevertheless,  we  are  usually  shown  a  Mozart  of  archangelic 
beauty,  a  beauty  more  feminine  than  virile,  and  with  little  suggestion 
of  the  mercurial  man  whose  music  may  be  called  immortal.  The  Rus- 
sian novelist  Turgenev  said  that  there  were  at  least  a  thousand  prin- 
cesses in  whose  arms  Chopin  was  supposed  to  have  died,  and  there 
must  be  a  thousand  painters  who  selected  as  a  subject  the  death-bed 
of  Wolfgang  Amadeus  Mozart. 

It  is  a  theme  always  provocative  of  interest,  this  dramatic  ending 
of  a  marvelous  musician  at  an  early  age.  How  often  have  we  not  looked 
at  that  operatic  ensemble — the  moribund  composer  surrounded  by  his 
sorrowing  family  and  friends.  A  huge  chorus  supplemented  by  an 
orchestra  deliver  the  solemn  and  tragic  measures  of  the  T(e^uiem^  upon 
the  pages  of  whose  manuscript  the  ink  is  hardly  dry.  Such  a  volume 
of  sound  would  have  waked  the  dead,  or  speedily  sent  to  his  grave  the 
dying  man.  It  is  very  effective  artistically,  but  it  is  not  entirely  vera- 
cious. Mozart  did  compose  his  T{e^uiem  during  the  last  days  of  his  too 
brief  existence.  The  composition  of  the  work  was  interrupted  by  spells 
of  fainting.  He  was  in  such  a  morbid  condition,superinduced  by  worry, 
-  overwork,  excitement,  not  to  mention  dissipation,  that  he  experienced 
hallucinations.  He  believed  that  he  had  been  poisoned,  whereas  the 
cause  of  his  death  was  malignant  typhus.  But  he  finished  the  T{e^uiem. 


whether  he  heard  it  sung  in  its  entirety  is  still  disputed  by  musical 
historians.  Perhaps  he  did.  It  does  not  much  matter  if  he  did  or  not, 
so  far  as  legends  and  pictures  are  concerned.  The  saddest  part  of  his 
life  was  not  his  death,  but  his  funeral.  Hastily  taken  to  the  cemetery 
by  a  few  faithful  ones,  his  actual  resting  place  is  not  positively  known, 
a  fitting  commentary  on  the  irony  of  human  destiny. 

But  though  the  mortal  part  of  Mozart  has  vanished,  his  music 
lives  for  our  delectation.  No  more  charming  tones  were  ever  penned 
by  man;  charming  and  erudite,  dramatically  powerful,  yet  bewitch- 
ing. His  T^on  (^iovanni  has  not  paled  before  the  more  exotic  scores  of 
Richard  Wagner.  It  held  its  own  in  company  with  the  ^JM^agic  Flute 
during  the  accustomed  temporary  oblivion  that  so  often  follows  the 
death  of  a  great  artist.  The  vivacious  operettas  and  one-act  lyric 
compositions  are  very  popular  in  Europe.  The  Q  minor  and  Q  major 
— the  yupiter  Symphony  figure  on  the  programs  of  every  important 
or  provincial  orchestra  on  the  globe.  The  piano  Qoncertos  in  ©  major 
and  ©  minor  are  prized  by  musical  pianists,  while  the  Sonatas  are  the 
companion  volume  to  Beethoven's — whose  forerunner  Mozart  was 
in  the  Q  minor  Fantasia  and  Sonata.  The  serenity,  grace,  blitheness  of 
this  music  with  its  native  wood-note  wild  is  without  parallel.  Mozart, 
the  sunny-souled,  has  his  legend,  and  a  lovely  one  it  is.  The  picture  of 
the  artist  is  more  intimate  than  the  conventional  canvas.  It  speaks  for 
itself  Mozart  hears  his  inspired  music,  the  music  of  the  spheres,  for 
Death,  the  arch  consoler,  is  playing  the  final  movement  in  the  com- 
poser's gracious  symphony  of  Life. 


IDA  is  instanced  as  an  example  of  the  parting  of 
the  musical  ways  in  Verdi's  style.  Perennially 
popular  operas  asWagner's  T^n^  and  Meyerbeer's 
Hugue7iotSy  both  tuneful  pageants,  are  outdone  by 
(tAida  with  its  massive  decorations,  imposing  music 
and  romantic  story.  As  a  matter  of  fad;,  it  is  replete 
with  more  Meyerbeerisms  than  any  opera  since 
J^<iAfricaine.  The  resemblance  to  Meyerbeer  does  not  stop  at  the 
libretto;  there  is  the  same  flamboyancy  and  prediledion  for  full-blown 
harmonies  and  lush  melodies,  exotic  color.  Wagner,  too,  influenced 
the  music.  But  it  is  the  Verdi  opera  now  most  beloved  by  the  public 
and  enjoys  a  vogue  similar  to  that  of  //  Tro\>atore  in  years  gone  by. 

Contrary  to  general  belief,  ^ida  was  not  written  to  celebrate  the 
completion  of  the  Suez  Canal,  nor  to  open  the  Italian  Opera  House  at 
Cairo;  the  work  happened  to  be  a  commission  from  the  Khedive  in  the 
early  winter  of  1871  with  a  libretto  on  Egyptian  subjedis;  hence  the 
accepted  and  erroneous  version  of  its  birth.  The  artist  has  selected  the 
third  ad,  the  Nile  scene  with  its  tropical  gorgeousness,  its  magic  and 
moonlight,  its  impassioned  lovers  and  their  betrayal  into  the  hands  of 
the  enemy  through  jealousy  and  treachery.  Musically,  it  is  the  cli- 
maderic  of  lyric  rapture  and  abandonment  and  thrilling  drama  vsx'^ida. 
The  superficiality  of  Verdi's  earlier  operas  should  not  blind  us 
to  the  promise  and  potency  of  their  music.  It  is  the  music  of  a  pas- 
sionate Italian  temperament,  music  hastily  conceived,  still  more  hastily 
jotted  down,  and  tumbled  anyhow  on  the  stage.  Musical  Italy  was 
altogether  devoted  to  the  voice.  As  for  the  dramatic  unities,  the  orches- 
tral commentary,  the  welding  of  adion,  story  and  music,  they  were  neg- 
ligible. Melody,  irrelevant,  fatuous,  trivial  melody,  and  again  melody, 
was  the  desideratum.  The  wonder  is  that  an  orchestra  was  used,  except 
that  it  made  more  noise  than  a  pianist;  that  costumes  were  worn, 


except  that  they  looked  braver,  gayer  in  the  flare  of  the  footlights 
than  street  attire.  The  singer  and  the  song  was  the  entire  excuse  for 
opera,  the  rest  was  sheer  waste.  Consider  the  early  Verdi  opera.  A 
string  of  passionate  tunes  bracketed  in  the  well-worn  cavatina-caba- 
letta  manner;  little  attempt  at  following  the  book — and  such  awful 
libretti! — for  the  orchestra,  a  strumming  machine,  without  color,  appo- 
siteness,  rhyme  or  reason,  the  music  febrile  and  of  a  simian-like  rest- 
lessness. It  was  written  for  persons  of  little  musical  intelligence,  who 
must  hum  a  tune,  or  ever  after  criticise  it  with  contempt.  *  Verdi  could 
compose  such  tunes  by  the  hundreds,  vital  dramatic  tunes.  Think 
of  the  saddening  waste  of  material  in  Oberto,J\(a^bucOyJ^mbarcli^  Srnani^ 
dXacbet/i,  Foscari,  •^ttila^  J^isa  ^Jt^iller  and  <^J)fCasnadierif  Rigoletto^ 
'Tr^'^iata^  II  'Tro\>atore  perhaps  hold  the  boards  today  because  of 
their  intrinsic  musical  worth  and  dramatic  effectiveness,  but  the  mists 
of  oblivion  are  stealing  over  them.  A  star  cast  or  Caruso  alone  saves 
them. 

Yet  they  prefigure  the  later  Verdi.  Otello  is  true  music-drama. 
The  character  drawing  is  that  of  a  master  of  his  art.  The  plot  moves 
in  majestic  splendor,  the  musical  psychology  is  often  subtle.  At  last 
Verdi  has  flowered.  His  early  music,  smelling  ranker  of  the  soil,  though 
showing  more  thematic  invention,  was  but  the  effort  of  a  hot-headed 
man  of  the  footlights,  a  seeker  after  applause  and  money.  But  before 
he  wrote  the  score  of  Otello  his  ^Aida  had  been  born. 

Today  the  play's  the  thing  to  catch  the  conscience  of  a  composer. 
In  Verdi's  Falstaff^  the  most  noteworthy  achievement  in  the  art  operatic 
since  T^ie  ^JMeister singer,  we  are  given  true  lyric  comedy.  In  form  it  is 
novel.  It  is  not  opera  buffa,  nor  yet  is  it  opera  comique  in  the  French 
sense;  indeed,  it  shows  a  marked  deviation  from  its  prototypes;  even 
the  elaborate  system  of  Wagnerian  leading  motives  is  not  employed.  It 
is  a  new  Verdi  we  hear.  Not  the  Verdi  of  //  Tro'\>atore,  T^ra\>iata, 
or  <uiida,  nevertheless  a  Verdi  brimful  of  the  joy  of  life,  naive,  yet 
sophisticated.  A  marvelous  compound  is  this  musical  comedy,  in  which 
the  music  follows  the  text,  and  no  concessions  are  made  to  the  singers 
or  to  the  time-honored  conventions  of  the  operatic  stage.  The  composer 
has  thrown  overboard  old  forms  and  planted  his  victorious  banner  in 
the  country  discovered  by  Mozart  and  conquered  by  Wagner. 


Cofjrighl,  jgjS 


<S7^  C  ^  D  E  £  S  S  OS^N 


ITH  the  solitary  exception  of  Chopin,  the  popu- 
w^//  liyA/larity  of  Mendelssohn's  piano  music  has  never  been 
^\  \//w7^M]  rivaled.  The  Songs  without  IVords  were  once  idol- 
>|ized  by  young  misses,  and  with  sufficient  cause. 
Ij  They  are  agreeably  melodic,  the  titles  are  char- 
acteristic, they  are  eminently  playable,  well  written, 
and  suffused  with  sentiment.  The  short-story  in 
music,  gilt-edged  lyricism,  as  they  have  been  nicknamed,  they  seldom 
disturb  the  placid  drift  of  one's  mood  after  an  enjoyable  dinner.  First 
aids  to  digestion  in  the  more  orderly  and  spacious  times  of  our  grand- 
parents, they  are  a  little  foreign  to  the  mood  of  the  present  haste- 
loving  generation.  So  behold  them,  with  the  oft-played  piano  con- 
certos, handed  over  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  pedagogue  and 
"young  lady  pupils."  Some  of  these  compositions  deserve  a  better  fate. 
At  least  four  of  the  Songs  without  IV irds  appear  at  wide  intervals  on  the 
programs  of  public  piano  recitals.  Paderewski  occasionally  plays  a  few 
with  much  sentiment,  and  De  Pachmann  always  won  tumultuous  ap- 
plause for  his  finished  performance  of  the  Spinning  Song^  and  the  l^mdo 
Capriccioso — that  shibboleth  of  the  conservatory.  Nevertheless,  it  is  a 
pity  that  the  other  compositions  for  the  piano  have  become  almost  ob- 
solete. The  swiftness,  delicacy,  elfin  lightness  and  brightness  of  the 
character  pieces  should  preserve  them  in  the  affections  of  amateurs. 
They  set  off  the  polished  talent  of  Mendelssohn  to  advantage;  they 
are  true  caprices;  and  are,  as  Bernard  Shaw  so  happily  says,"light  without 
heat."  Mendelssohn  never  tears  passion  to  tatters.  He  is  too  well-bred 
to  indulge  in  passion.  He  embodies  the  gentlemanly  interest  in  music. 

But  the  Felix  Mendelssohn-Bartholdy  o{  A  <iJ)(Cidsummer  Night" s 
Dream !  That  is  a  tale  of  another  color,  a  tale  in  which  may  be 
found  charm,  fantasy  and  the  "horns  of  elf-land  faintly  blowing." 
Shakespeare's  exquisite  romanticism  is  here  allied  to  an  almost  mirac- 


ulous  formal  sense  in  composition.  And  from  the  pen  of  a  seventeen- 
year-old  lad!  It  would  be  hardly  conceivable  were  it  not  the  truth. 
"Today  or  tomorrow,"  wrote  Mendelssohn  on  July  7,  1826,  "I  shall 
begin  to  dream  the  r^idsummer  Night' s  T>ream^^'^  and  a  month  later 
that  dream  was  clothed  in  tone.  The  poetry  of  Shakespeare  was  given 
its  ideal  musical  interpretation.  As  Frederick  Niecks  has  written, 
What  constitutes  the  chief  originality  of  the  overture  is  the  creation 
of  the  fairy  world  with  its  nimble,  delicate  and  beautiful  population." 
Before  our  mind's  eye  are  called  up  Oberon  and  Titania  as  they  meet 
in  "grove  or  green  by  fountain  clear  or  spangled  starlight  sheen"; 
the  elves  who,  when  their  king  and  queen  quarrel,  creep  into  acorn 
cups,  their  coats  made  of  the  leathern  wings  of  rere-mice;  peaseblos- 
som,  cobweb,  moth,  and  mustard  seed;  and  the  roguish  sprite  Puck, 
alias  Robin  Goodfellow,  who  delights  in  playing  merry  pranks.  In 
this  especial  genre,  Mendelssohn  surpassed  himself,  though  he  wrote 
music  of  profounder  import  in  the  Hebrides  O'^erture,  and  Elijah, 

When  recalling  the  tripping  measures  of  this  airy  fairy  comedy  we 
should  not  forget  the  humans — Duke  Theseus  and  his  betrothed, 
Queen  Hippolyta,  Lysander  and  Hermia,  Demetrius  and  Helena  the 
lovers;  and  the  comic  Athenian  citizens — Quince,  Snug,  Bottom, 
Flute,  Snout  and  Starveling;  nor  the  immortal  head  of  the  Ass.  The 
incidental  music  written  seventeen  years  afterward  is  in  the  inevitable 
key  of  the  play;  the  Scher^,  th(otturno  and  JV zdding  <i^arch. 

The  artist  has  obviously  stressed  the  decorative  element  of  this 
fairy  episode.  The  portrait  of  the  composer  musing  over  his  youthful 
masterpiece  is  symbolical,  for  the  features  of  the  boy  Mendelssohn  are 
not  as  familiar  as  those  of  the  dignified  composer.  He  is  the  Prince 
Fortunatus  among  musicians.  The  son  of  a  wealthy  man,  the  grandson 
of  a  philosopher,  his  career  was  like  a  midsummer  night's  dream. 
Happy  he  was  from  cradle  to  grave.  Aptly  was  he  named  Felix. 


N 


HE  most  imposing  figure  in  the  history  of  music 
I  was  George  Frederic  Handel;  imposingin  his  music, 
)his  person  physically  imposing.  He  has  been  called, 
and  not  without  reason,  the  greatest  of  English  com- 
'posers,  though  German  born.  He  still  dominates 
English  music  from  Purcell  to  Elgar,  notwithstand- 
ing the  advent  of  two  such  dangerous  rivals  near 
this  throne  as  Mendelssohn  and  Wagner.  But  the  popularity  of  the 
Messiah  has  never  been  threatened.  It  is  perennial.  Its  composer,  sturdy, 
dogmatic,  brooking  no  opposition,  as  choleric  as  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson, 
to  whom  in  certain  charad:eristics,  he  bears  a  surprising  resemblance, 
was  a  glorified  John  Bull.  The  music  he  so  fluently  penned — and  so 
blithely  appropriated  from  other  men's  compositions — is  not  always  pro- 
found, though  harmonious,  pleasantly  sonorous,  cheerful  and  healthy. 
This  particularly  refers  to  the  concertos,  suites,  fugues  and  overtures. 
Occasionally  melancholy  is  sounded,  a  sweet  pathos  that  refledls  the 
spirit  of  his  epoch,  which  was  more  decorative  than  poetic.  But  he 
could  sound  the  epical  note,  blow  it  big,  sonorously  and  soul-stir- 
ringly  through  his  mighty  trumpet,  and  how  big,  how  exalted  it  all  is 
we  need  but  listen  to  the  Messiah. 

Yet  there  was  an  introspective  Handel,  a  Handel  who  is  said  to 
have  wept  bitter  tears  while  composing  "  He  was  despised  and  rejected 
of  men,"  in  the  Messiah.  There  the  solitary  suffering  of  the  great  tone 
painter  of  primal  music  is  expressed  in  exquisite  accents.  He,  the 
proudest  man  of  his  day,  the  favorite  of  two  sovereigns,  the  honored 
artist,  had  been  despised  and  rejected  in  his  love  suit.  The  haughty, 
domineering  musician  who  seems  so  superb  in  his  court  costume, 
powdered  wig,  sword  at  side,  had  his  moments  of  depression  and 
brackish  grief,  despite  his  pugnacity,  and  brutality  to  his  singers.  (He 
is  said  to  have  suspended  an  unfortunate  lady,  who  had  stubbornly 


refused  to  sing,  out  of  the  window  till  she  surrendered.  It  sounds  too 
good  to  be  true.)  Sitting  one  morning  at  his  harpsichord  in  his  pleas- 
ant music-room  and  near  the  open  window  whence  penetrated  the 
street  cries  and  noises  of  London,  Handel  preluded.  His  power  of  im- 
provisation was  almost  as  extraordinary  as  Johann  Sebastian  Bach's. 
He  idly  taps  the  keys  of  the  archaic  harpsichord.  Soft  spring  airs  steal 
in  the  apartment.  Suddenly  a  fire  engine  passes,  sounding  its  tinkling 
signal  of  warning.  The  three  iterated  notes  of  B  piqued  the  fancy  of 
the  composer.  He  struck  them  out  on  the  keyboard,  three  B's,  and  at 
once  followed  the  echoing  answer  from  above.  His  imagination  fired, 
Handel  put  forth  all  the  resources  of  his  art;  two,  three  and  four 
voices  pursued  each  other  in  the  labyrinthine  cross-game  of  the  fugue. 
Like  the  palimpsest  of  some  antique  manuscript  there  peeped  through 
in  tones  of  fire  other  meanings,  other  proclamations.  The  complex 
contrapuntal  knot  was  tied  at  its  tightest.  Then  came  the  resolution 
of  the  theme  in  booming  octaves.  It  is  like  the  concentrated  roll  of  a 
wave  on  a  sullen,  savage  shore.  We  are  listening  to  the  E  minor fugue^ 
the  Fire  Fugue^  so  christened  by  some  one  who  had  a  barren  fancy,  for 
this  is  no  mere  imitative  musical  etching  depicting  the  flight  of  a  fire 
engine,  but  the  creation  of  emotional  art. 

It  vibrates  with  feeling,  and  the  thrice  repeated  B  is  but  the 
masterful  assertion  of  passionate  love  and  anger  hot  from  the  heart  of 
this  man  whose  pride  was  like  Lucifer's.  There  is  melodic  sublimity 
and  the  atmosphere  of  the  vast  ocean,  which  pulses  in  magnificent 
rhythms.  One  forgets  the  science — Bach's  fugues  are  more  logical  and 
severe — for  the  mystery :  Handel  spilled  his  great  soul  in  the  Fire  Fugue, 


* 


"RJJ  "BINS  T'e/JA^ 


NTON  RUBINSTEIN  plays  for  the  great  White 
Czar  and  Czarina  of  all  the  Russias !  It  is  like  read- 
ing from  the  page  of  some  forgotten  romance,  yet 
it  is  not  so  many  years  ago  that  a  Czar  and 
Czarina  sat  upon  the  throne  of  the  Russian  empire 
and  occasionally  lent  a  gracious  ear  to  the  piano 
playing  of  Rubinstein.  The  old  order  has  changed 
and  czars  have  gone  out  of  fashion.  Sadder  still  to  the  lover  of  music 
is  the  fac^l  that  with  the  death  of  Rubinstein  no  artist  of  his  emotional 
caliber  has  appeared  upon  the  scene,  nor  is  there  likely  to  be  one. 
That  prodigious  trinity,  Liszt,  Rubinstein,  and  Tausig,  represent  the 
romantic  school  ot  playing.  They  had  all  the  virtues  and  few  of  the 
vices  of  the  hierarchy.  Rubinstein,  an  impressionist  at  the  keyboard, 
an  impressionist  whether  he  improvised  or  composed — in  his  case  usu- 
ally the  same  thing — was  the  most  emotional  pianist  of  them  all.  Other 
men  have  revealed  more  intellectuality  in  their  interpretations — con- 
sider Von  Biilow;  have  displayed  more  versatility — there  is  Liszt; 
have  possessed  a  more  polished  technique — Karl  Tausig.  But  Rubin- 
stein outpaced  the  others  in  his  overwhelming  passion.  He  was  vol- 
canic. He  was  as  torrid  as  midday  in  the  tropics.  His  touch  melted 
the  heart  in  a  Chopin  nod:urne,  and  he  could  thunder  like  a  storm 
cloud,  thunder  and  lighten.  He  knew  all  schools,  all  styles  and  all 
their  nuances.  The  plangency  of  his  tone,  fingers  of  velvet,  fingers  of 
bronze,  the  sweep,  audacity  and  tenderness  of  his  many  styles — ah  I 
there  was  but  one  Anton  Rubinstein. 

Behold  him  then  as  pictured  by  the  fancy  of  the  artist,  sitting  in 
the  center  of  Petrograd's  court  circle.  He  seems  inspired.  What  is  he 
playing?  Possibly  one  of  those  tiny  portraits  he  named  J^menoi- 
Ostrowy''  the  Isle  of  Kamenoi,  which  stands,  a  pleasant  green  oasis  in 
the  river  Neva,  at  Petrograd.  It  is  a  recreation  park  and  boasts  a  palace. 


The  music,  like  so  many  pieces  of  Rubinstein,  became  popular,  too 
popular,  as  did  his  famous  ^y}(Celody.  Improvised,  like  the  majority 
of  his  piano  compositions,  it  is  not  destined  to  immortality.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  the  larger  works,  the  symphonies,  operas,  even  the 
chamber-music.  The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  Haste  in  com^position 
is  not  alone  the  cause  of  the  decay  and  dissolution  of  his  music.  It  is 
the  lack  of  personal  profile.  He  wrote,  not  like  Moussorgsky,  genuine 
Russian  music,  but  music  that  smacks  too  often  of  the  lamp  academic. 
He  detested  Wagner,  nevertheless  Wagner  lives  and  the  music  of 
Rubinstein  is  already  short  of  breath.  More's  the  pity,  for  he  is  essen- 
tially a  melodist.  He  shook  melodies  out  of  his  sleeve.  His  songs  are 
charming.  He  fairly  fascinates  us  with  his  piano  music,  yet  the  present 
generation  votes  him  old-fashioned  and  hardly  worth  the  trouble  of 
study.  So,  this  is  the  tragedy  of  a  man  whose  life,  like  Liszt's,  was  a 
blazing  torchlight  procession  through  the  broad  avenues  of  the  world, 
and  now  become  a  candle  that  wavers  before  each  critical  wind  down 
the  Corridor  of  Time.  But  living  he  was  a  symbol  of  power,  and  when 
he  smote  the  keys  his  music  was  magical.  Thrice  eloquent  he  plays 
for  the  beautiful  women  who  surround  him.  His  leonine  mane  is  less 
disheveled  in  the  more  decorative  atmosphere  of  the  palace.  He  is 
barbaric  when  he  wills,  and  those  Calmuck  features  can  become  pas- 
sionate, but  here  he  coos  as  softly  as  a  sucking  dove.  And  the  exqui- 
site creatures  sigh,  the  Czar  is  pensive,  the  Czarina  conceals  her  dis- 
quieted soul  behind  the  conventional  court  mask.  It  is  a  glittering 
episode  in  the  northern  Babylon,  in  the  life  of  a  noble  artist,  in  the 
life  of  a  Czar.  But  the  handwriting  is  there  on  the  wall  for  those  who 
can  read,  and  in  letters  of  fire — z^^itenef  Tekel!  Upharsin  I 


Cofjrighl,  iqiS 


HAT  is  this  apparition  in  the  darkened  skies  that 
flies  before  the  storm-blasts  ?  A  father  rides  in  the 
night  on  a  fleet  horse,  across  his  arm  his  sick  child. 
Behind  them  is  the  grisly  King  of  Terror,  Death. 
The  howling  winds  deaden  the  whispered  words  of 
the  Erlking,  but  the  child  hears  and  his  pitiful  little 
body  shudders;  he  is  fainting  with  the  fear  of  im- 
pending calamity.  The  thud  of  the  horse's  hoofs,  though  he  treads  air, 
does  not  dull  the  hearing  of  the  doomed  one.  Thou  lovely  child,  come 
with  me  to  my  magic  abode,  where  flowers  and  glittering  costumes 
await  theel  There  my  daughter  shall  weave  for  your  enraptured  eyes 
the  silken  paces  of  the  dance,  weave  garlands,  singing  haunting  songs 
all  the  while  I  But  the  child  is  terrified.  The  voice  that  filters  through 
the  porchcv,  of  his  ears  has  a  sinister  sound.  He  sadly  mistrusts  these 
promises  of  bliss.  He  longs  to  stay  with  his  father,  who  presses  him  so 
closely  to  his  bosom.  He  clings  all  the  more  as  through  the  shriek  of 
the  infernal  gale  which  blows  from  the  mouth  of  the  tomb  the  voice 
redoubles  its  seductiveness.  Come,  lovely  child,  come  play  with  me  in 
the  enchanted  land  of  dreams!  My  father,  my  father,  cries  the  child, 
don't  you  hear,  don't  you  see  the  Erlking  with  his  crown,  who  begs 
me  to  leave  you?  My  child,  answers  the  father,  it  is  the  mist  and  wind 
that  fill  your  eyes  and  ears!  Have  no  fear!  I  hold  you  fast!  But  father, 
my  father,  he  threatens  now!  Ah!  father,  he  has  sadly  wounded  me! 
For  answer  the  father  rides  the  swifter.  When  he  reaches  his  home  a 
dead  child  he  carries  in  his  arms.  Death  has  outstripped  him  in  the 
eternal  race  for  a  human  soul. 

Goethe's  immortal  ballad  has  been  often  set  to  music,  but  to 
Franz  Schubert  must  be  awarded  the  prize.  He  is  as  much  identified 
with  the  Erlking  as  the  poet  himself;  and  Goethe  did  not  even  ac- 
knowledge the  composition  when  sent  to  him.  It  was  composed  by 


Schubert  at  the  age  of  fifteen  and  is  set  down  as  his  opus  i.  Such  pre- 
cocity has  seldom  been  rivaled. 

In  the  picture  it  is  the  mature  Schubert  who  faces  his  desk,  music 
paper  before  him,  poring  over  his  notes,  for  the  artist  justly  enough 
has  given  us  the  portrait  by  which  he  is  best  known.  The  fierce  rush 
of  the  horse,  whose  hoofs  reverberate  like  the  octaves  of  the  thrilling 
accompaniment,  evoke  the  tragic  atmosphere,  and  the  fantastic  noc- 
turnal spectres.  Surely  Schubert  was  the  first  Romantic  in  tone,  as 
well  as  the  greatest  composer  of  songs.  His  melodies  sing  in  the  heart 
long  after  they  have  ceased  humming  in  the  ears.  Poor,  timid,  homely 
— that  is,  if  a  genius  can  ever  be  ugly — Schubert!  Despised  and  rejected, 
his  love  scorned,  his  music  at  first  unplayed,  unsung,  he  is  yet  the  one 
composer  who  shall  remain  eternally  young.  Schubert  is  romance. 
Even  when  he  is  prosy  his  music  prose  is  tipped  with  lyric  gold.  On 
his  sick  bed  Beethoven  acknowledged  that  he  was  the  divine  spark; 
he  could  have  said,  tongues  of  fire.  Like  Beethoven,  he  loved  the 
fields  and  woods,  lakes  and  rivers,  clouds  and  moonlight,  and  like 
Beethoven  he  saw  the  stars.  Schumann  told  the  truth  of  Franz  Schu- 
bert when  he  wrote:  "His  profound  musical  soul  wrote  notes  where 
others  employ  words.''  He  is  the  poet  of  youthful,  loving  hearts. 


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